Embarking on the wine journey

“Few of us have chosen our clubs, they have simply been presented to us” – Nick Hornby?

As a passionate football fan this famous Nick Hornby quote has accompanied me half my life.

Mobility was my passionate choice

I have spent most of my professional life in the mobility industry. I served great companies like Europcar, car2go, WeShare and unu in leading roles and supported even more as a consultant. My work covered different business models and many included assets like cars, bikes, mopeds and scooters while others were purely platform based. But now it is time to embark on a new endeavour.

valleygrapes came to me even though I was not looking for wine

At the end of 2022 I wanted to recover from my last engagement in the mobility world and clear my head for new things and traveled to South Africa with part of my family. Many of you know from your own experience how great this country and its people can be and it was not our first time there either. This time we took the opportunity to visit Almé Jordaan's family, who is studying and training in the USA with our daughter Jette.

?The Jordaan family is the third generation to run the beautiful Theuniskraal winery in the Tulbagh Valley, which we were very impressed and fascinated by. This positive impression was reinforced by a delicious wine tasting orchestrated by Andries Jordaan who took us on an exciting journey through the history of the winery and the Tulbagh Valley. We were able to enjoy many wines and were immediately thrilled by the taste and variety of these wines.

Theuniskraal and Andries Jordaan were the inspiration for valleygrapes

The tasting ended with the trend-setting sentence from Andries, “Thomas, in the past I exported more to Europe and I would like to do so in the future again.” My answer came intuitively, spontaneously and very surprisingly for my family when I said that I had a lot of time now, that I knew a few people from the beverage, catering and event sectors and that I would “investigate deeper”.

?valleygrapes will be the virtual place in Europe for all Tulbagh wines

The result of this rather coincidental visit is the founding of two companies, the creation of the “valleygrapes” brand, the implementation of a logistics concept from South Africa to Europe and the opening of an online shop in November 2023. valleygrapes only sells wines from the wineries that produce in the Tulbagh Valley. Today valleygrapes has around 50 wines from 7 wineries in its portfolio. The goal is to offer all 140 wines from all 14 wineries in the future.

Join the adventure and be part of the journey

Customers are already experiencing the great potential of these distinctive wines and I believe that it is also time for you to hop-on the virtual “Tulbagh Wine Train” and experience the sun and lifestyle of the Tulbagh Valley - simply from home.

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